This week’s list features the 10 best movies about the workplace and corporate life.

I realize that category covers a lot of ground and that it could be stretched to cover many more great movies than I’ve included here. For example, “Citizen Kane,” the greatest movie ever, deals somewhat with the workings of Charles Foster Kane’s newspapers and his relationships with a couple of his employees, but I didn’t think that was what the movie really was about, so I left it out.

Feel free to second-guess that and any of my other choices. I’m sure I omitted some good ones.

I don’t have much time for my blog today. My chief focus is on dolling myself up for tonight’s Freddy Awards, where I’ll be a presenter.

This will take a lot of work. I can’t remember the last time I wore a tuxedo — my Junior Prom? — and I’ve been packing weight on all winter. I’m afraid I’ll look like Frankenstein singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

Still, it’s pretty exciting. I’m a big fan of the Freddy concept, and I’ve watched on TV, but I’ve never actually been at the State Theatre for this event. I hope I’m not stagestruck as I present Best Eating Scene or whatever award they assign me.

If any of you out there have attended and have observations about the experience, I know I’d be interested in reading them. If I’m not tied up in Makeup all night, I’ll try to experience enough tonight to write a column about it.

Since my colleague John Moser has announced Lee DeWyze will win “American Idol” tonight, I’ll offer the opposite view.

Not only has Crystal earned the top spot — by obliterating a jittery Lee Tuesday night and through tremendous consistency all season long — but I think she’s going to win it.

John’s article focused mostly on Lee’s more commercial appeal, and maybe he's right. Lee has struck me as a less talented version of David Cook, who has had decent success since winning Idol a couple of years ago. Boosted by the Idol team, Lee should do fine.

But I believe those who dismiss Crystal as a coffeeshop folk singer are underestimating her badly. She’s a terrific blues singer whose voice at its best is reminiscent of Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt. And she's a real original, which is one reason I've found her so compelling, even when she wasn't at her best. With the right material and guidance, there’s no reason why her talent shouldn’t translate into commercial success.

(Blogger's note: I wrote this parody to be a column, but when I ran it past a colleague who is not a "Lost" fan, he concluded: "Bill, anyone who never saw Lost will think you are on crack. I know I do." The "Lost" fan I showed it to agreed that I would baffle many newspaper readers, so I decided to run it here instead.)

Ed Pawlowski slung his rifle over his shoulder, checked the hunting knife at his waist and beckoned for the group to follow him.

The group was afraid Pawlowski would dissolve into smoke and destroy the annoying Hershman. Instead, Pawlowski pulled out his laptop and began setting up a screen for a PowerPoint presentation.

Everyone groaned. “We’ll take your word for it,” someone grumbled.

Pawlowski shrugged and opened the hatch. “All aboard,” he said cheerfully.

Gunfire erupted from the edge of the jungle. “Take this backpack and leave without me!” Pawlowski shouted, shoving it at Sayid. He unslung his rifle and began returning fire. “You’ll be fine. It’ll be a voyage without limits!”

After an evening immersed in “Lost” backstory and its 2 1/2 hour finale, I decided to throw today's blog open to the show's fans.

How do you rank this finale against those of other blockbuster TV series’? The ones that immediately came to mind for me all were situation comedies — “Seinfeld,” “Friends,” “M*A*S*H,” “Cheers” — but there was “Dallas,” maybe the most notoriously loopy conclusion of all. And that controversial "Sopranos" ending. Which was the best series finale ever?

The more significant question for “Lost” fans, I think, involves … questions. Throughout its history, it seemed that whenever the show answered one of its big questions, it raised five more. So the big question for many of us was: Would the finale answer all our questions?

Clearly, the final scene raised a very big new question, and I’d be interested in your interpretations. But I’m also wondering: Beyond that new one, which questions remain unanswered for you? And if you see someone’s question that you believe has been answered, please jump in and explain it to us.

Today’s Movie Quote Quiz spotlights four actors and actresses. Individually or in pairs, they appear in every movie on today’s list.

There also is another theme at work in several of these. So in addition to identifying the quotes, feel free to guess the actors/actresses and the plot thread that unifies many of the movies.

Let’s review the rules.

Don’t look these quotes or movies up on the Internet if you expect to offer answers in the Comments. It’s cheating.

Also, restrain yourself from answering a bunch of these at once. Pick a couple of the harder ones you recognize, answer those and give someone else a chance. You’ll be welcome to return over the weekend if the group still is stumped.

One last warning. Although each of these movies features one of those actors, they aren’t necessarily the stars, nor are they necessarily the people being quoted. There are no cameo roles, but they aren’t all star turns either.

I wrote today about the surprising results in the 131st legislative district, where incumbent Republican Karen Beyer lost to 23-year-old Justin Simmons.

My sense was that this surprising defeat of a moderate Republican by a more conservative young man living at home with his parents symbolized the increasing pressure on moderates of both parties to vote "reliably" rather than crossing party lines to craft compromises.

I don’t think that’s a good thing.

There were some points I didn’t have space for. One is that while I don’t doubt some of the fine qualities that many people have praised in Simmons, to me, he is exactly the kind of legislator we don’t need, and I’m not talking about his politics.

We need citizen lawmakers who have enough real-world work and life experience to understand the problems people are facing out there. I support term limits in part because I don’t like seeing young people enter legislative service in their 20s and make a career of it. It can give them a warped view of their place in society.

My best example for this is Keith McCall, D-Carbon, who succeeded his late father at age 22 and has kept the job for 28 years, most recently as House speaker. He’ll retire at the end of this year at age 50 with a $90,000 a year pension along with taxpayer-subsidized health benefits — and with a well-established sense of entitlement that has resulted in any number of appalling votes to line his own pockets.

Props to Casey James for making things easy for “American Idol” voters. By pretty much mailing it in Tuesday night — and last week, for that matter — he took much of the suspense out of the drama over which two singers will make the final two.

Lee, meanwhile, was blowing people away, particularly with his show-closing performance of “Hallelujah.” His spot in the final looks as secure as it can be in a situation where you have to depend on the public to do the sensible thing, and he appears to have established himself as the person to beat in the final. He's come a long way.

Crystal did very well, too, going all Janis Joplin on Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed.” I’ve liked her all season, and I was glad to see she rose to the occasion.

Derbe “Skip” Eckhart, operator of the former inaptly named Almost Heaven dog kennel in Upper Milford Township, was cuffed and led off to prison today after his sentencing in Lehigh County Court.

Judge Robert Steinberg disregarded Eckhart’s tearful plea for no jail time, sentencing him to 6 to 23 months in county prison and three years probation.

During that time, Eckhart will be prohibited from working with animals or from owning any more animals than the ones he has now. He also was forced to relinquish 22 dogs and cats that the Pennsylvania SPCA seized and has been caring for since its June 2009 raid on Almost Heaven.

Because Eckhart wouldn’t voluntarily relinquish control of those seized animals, PSPCA couldn’t adopt them out. PSPCA representative Ashley Mutch testified today that it has spent almost $213,000 on the care of those 2009 animals. No restitution was requested because he wasn’t convicted of the charges relating to those dogs and cats.

The striking things to me about this morning’s proceeding, besides the volume of tearful precipitation, was the way Eckhart was portrayed by his supporters and Skip himself.

In honor of “MacGruber,” a spinoff of a relentlessly unfunny recurring skit on “Saturday Night Live,” I started a list last week of the most ill-advised SNL movie spinoffs.

I found about seven execrable examples — “It’s Pat?” — but it dried up after that, and I decided there wasn’t enough material for you to argue about, except maybe the people who loved “Superstar” or “The Ladies Man.”

What we need here, I decided, was a list that would give you an ample opportunity to tell me what an idiot I am. Today’s list — 10 Best Tom Hanks Movies — is the result.

This one was tough. There are at least 20 Tom Hanks movies that I genuinely liked, and choosing that last two or three was particularly difficult.

I’ll explain that I’m choosing on the basis of best movies, not best Hanks performances, although the quality of his acting is a factor in most of them. Feel free to disagree and sing the praises of your own choices in the Comments.

Two TV notes. “The Pacific,” which Hanks co-produced, was great last Sunday. This Sunday’s episode is the finale.

Also, last Friday saw the seasonal debut of the most underrated show on television, at least when those idiots vote for Emmys. It’s “Friday Night Lights.” We’ll be meeting a bunch of new characters now that Eric is coaching at sad sack East Dillon High School, but some of the old kids still are around. If you’ve never watched this show about a Texas town where high school football is king, I encourage you to check it out. And no, you don’t need to be a big football fan.

I announced in my column today that lawyer John Karoly was this year’s inductee to my Hall of Fame of the area’s most colorful characters.

Karoly’s credentials, beyond the notoriety he has earned as the Lehigh Valley’s most high-profile courtroom advocate, included his guilty plea to tax evasion and conviction on mail fraud and money laundering charges. He was sentenced to 61/2 years in federal prison and has to pay $1.57 million in back taxes and other restitution.

I’ve gotten some entertaining responses to his induction, including a couple of commenters on the online story who questioned my courage for going too easy on Karoly and for not inducting him before. In the column, I explained my previous reluctance to make him a Hall of Famer -- I didn't think it was appropriate with criminal charges looming, because I didn't want to appear to be prejudging them -- but if anyone thinks I was too soft, consider that this wasn't my first column this year on John Karoly. In fact, I was accused of being too nasty in this one.

Anyway, I decided to share one of the e-mail responses with you here today, because it raised a great point about the hidden toll of fraudulent behavior such as Karoly's.

This hasn’t been the most exciting season of “American Idol,” but there has been one bit of good news.

No, not the judges. Randy is a broken record — I’m convinced he has told Crystal “I don't think it was your best performance” every week of the season, no matter how good she is — Kara is like fingers on a blackboard and Ellen at this point has been reduced to lame puns and other one-liners instead of any kind of useful commentary. It’s pathetic.

Certainly not this week's "songs from the cinema" theme, which turned out to be a bit of a dud, or its mentor, Jamie Foxx, who struck me -- and, I suspect, the contestants -- as extremely strange.

I had the privilege of attending a memorial gathering for the late Billy Givens Saturday in Easton, and it was an eye-opener.

If you’ve read my columns about Hall of Famer Givens over the years, you know him as an excitable man with a bullhorn, as the author of incendiary newsletters and blogs, as a gadfly of unusual gifts and passion. He was all those things, certainly.

But as his lovely wife, Kathy Parker, led me into their beautiful College Hill home full of Givens’ family and friends — and particularly as I heard Parker, Givens’ son Robin and others tell stories about the man and speak about what he meant to them — I understood that he was much more than that.

He was a loving husband and father. He was a loyal friend. He was an advocate for people who lacked his willingness to throw himself — literally, on at least one memorable occasion, as you can see in the photo above — into a cause.

I have computer training this afternoon and no lists at hand, so I’ve decided to return to Movie Quotes for another thrilling quiz.

There are three themes at work here, two involving actors and one a director. See if you can identify them.

First, the rules of engagement. Do not look any of these quotes up if you expect to answer. This is a test of your memory and movie knowledge, and cheaters never prosper.

Also, don’t pig out by answering a bunch of these at once. Pick a couple of the harder ones, then give everybody else a chance. Your help will be more than welcome Saturday or Sunday, when everyone else is stumped.

I was at the Phillies’ nail-biting win over the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday night.

The game, marked by a playoff-style atmosphere and a stellar performance by pitcher Cole Hamels, was won with a Carlos Ruiz walkoff home run in the 10th inning.

But it never would have come to that if Hamels could have negotiated the ninth, which he entered with a 1-0 lead.

Hamels was striding into the first pitch of the inning when the umpire raised his arms and ran out from behind the plate to call time out. We looked down and realized that some idiot had wandered onto the field.

There was a lot going on here. My first thought, and that of at least some other fans, was that the interruption might hurt Hamels’ concentration and cost the Phillies the game. Even from long range, he looked extremely annoyed.

But in light of all the ruckus regarding the previous night’s taser takedown of an elusive fan on the field (I stuck video of that at the end of this post), the real issue was whether the cops would tase this bozo, too, or adopt a kinder, gentler approach.

I was amused to read that the Bethlehem Area School Board is examining the fairness of a bidding process that involved the district’s engineer, D’Huy Engineering.

D’Huy bid on an energy audit contract, a job designed to save taxpayers money by suggesting ways to trim utility costs. But after a competing firm and school director Judith Dexter questioned whether it’s ethical for a company to be under contract as district engineer and also work separately for the same district as a consultant, the district’s Facilities Committee agreed to ask some outside organization to weigh in on whether this is appropriate.

It’s amusing because this kind of incestuousness is old hat with D’Huy. Most memorably, the firm oversaw construction at the recently completed Broughal Middle School, a project that was designed by its own former architecture wing, Architecture Furst. Dexter questioned that one, too, with some support from Loretta Leeson, but the rest of the rubber-stamp board saw no problem with it. I’m glad to see this board at least is willing to explore the question further.

As a big Frank Sinatra fan, I was very interested in seeing how the contestants did with that theme and with Harry Connick Jr. as mentor. Sinatra daughters Tina and Nancy — Tina looked great, Nancy like an Awful Plastic Surgery subject — were on hand for the show.

Connick was terrific, even arranging the songs, playing keyboards and conducting the band. Maybe he’s too busy, but he’d make a great judge if they decide to clean house next year, which they should.

The contestants were not so terrific. Randy and Ellen shocked me by gushing over Aaron’s lame performance of “Fly Me to the Moon.” He seems like a nice, talented kid, and I’m glad he’s done well, but his level of charisma and singing power falls way short of the other remaining contenders. Yes, David Archuleta made the finals at the same age. Aaron isn’t in his class, either.

I did a list of the Best Military TV Shows and Miniseries’ a couple of months ago. If I were undertaking the same project today, “The Pacific” would be at the top of the list.

If you haven’t been following this HBO miniseries, which has two episodes left to run, you should do whatever you can to catch up, probably at this point when they come out with the full season DVD. It has been incredible.

Like “Band of Brothers,” another great military miniseries, it was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

This week’s episode focused on John Basilone, the Marine gunnery sergeant who won both the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross during World War II. The real and TV Basilones are shown above.

Basilone won the Medal of Honor for his amazing feats of heroism at Guadalcanal, where he held off 3,000 Japanese after his unit was reduced to two men. They brought him back to the United States for a war bond tour, and he could have sat out of the rest of the war at home.

Instead, he insisted on returning to combat. He was killed on the first day of fighting at Iwo Jima, where he distinguished himself again by taking out an enemy blockhouse and leading American tanks under heavy fire.

My column Tuesday will be about Saturday’s World Philly Cheesesteak Eating Championship at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom. I saw some of the world’s top eaters, including the legendary Joey Chestnut, in the flesh.

I decided to contrast the sizes, styles and experiences of local professional Wild Bill Myers, ranked 41st in the world, and the top-ranked Chestnut. The latter won the championship by eating 19 cheesesteaks in 10 minutes. Myers, who comments on here from time to time, ate 5 1/2.

But I didn’t have space to mention where they go from here as the eating season kicks into gear.